Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453

In a letter to his father Leopold dated 9 June, 1784, Mozart wrote:

Tomorrow Herr Ployer, the agent, is giving a concert in the country at Döbling, where Fräulein Babette is playing her new concerto in G, and I am performing the quintet; we are then playing together the grand sonata for two claviers. I am fetching Paisiello in my carriage, as I want him to hear both my pupil and my compositions.

What a wonderful time this was for Mozart! His music was the height of fashion; he was sought after by the nobility and wealthy upper middle classes, and he enjoyed the respect of the finest musicians of the day, among whom Paisiello must certainly be counted. One would like to freeze this moment in Mozart's frantic life, when he was happy and thriving on a growing career.

Babette (Barbara) Ployer was the cousin of Gottfried Ignaz von Ployer, Archbishop Colloredo's agent in Vienna. She was obviously quite gifted, for Mozart had also written for her the concerto No. 14 in E-flat, K.449. If he played his brilliant two-piano sonata (in D-major, K. 448) with her at the concert, he clearly respected her musicianship and technique. She was one of the few students he permitted to play his works in public with his blessing.

Writing for Babette Ployer seems to have brought out the best in Mozart. Charles Rosen calls its opening movement "perhaps the most graceful and colorful of all Mozart's military allegros." The central Andante is a miracle of woodwind writing. For the finale, Mozart opted for variations, the first time he did so in a mature concerto.

The concerto opens with a characteristic march theme, a favorite pattern of Mozart's in his first movements. This one, however, is unsupported by trumpets or timpani. Instead, we hear delicate commentary from flute, oboes and bassoons that establishes a mood more lyrical and intimate than martial. The key of G major reinforces a sense of innocence and joy. Grace and lyric beauty prevail in this lovely movement, where another perfectly delectable melody seems to be lurking around every corner. The second theme, an harmonically unstable melodic query that Mozart develops with magnificent chromatic skill, bears special attention, for it resurfaces in the slow movement, metamorphosed into the principal melody.

The Andante opens with strings alone, then the winds enter in a lovely serenade-like passage. The solo piano entrance, in the key of C major, cedes almost immediately to a G-minor outburst. Throughout this movement, Mozart explores harmonies so far afield that, when he returns to the opening statement in C major, it sounds as if he is traveling to a foreign land. The sense of harmonic disorientation is startling in a work from the 1780s. Surely this is the type of movement that caused the 19th-century romantics to claim Mozart as one of their own!

Mozart's finale is a splendid set of variations on a theme that brings a smile to one's face. He is said to have adapted a tune his pet starling sang. Every segment of this delicious movement is touched with genius, humor, and transitions that cause us to shake our heads in disbelief that so much imagination and magic could